Geosciences Congressional Visits Day
15-16 September 2009, Washington, D.C., USA. Take part in the second annual Geosciences Congressional Visits Day. Students welcome! Attend briefings and training sessions, as well as meetings with House and Senate offices. Please contact Craig Schiffries for more information or to participate.

Teaching of Evolution Position Statement
GSA Council approved an updated Position Statement on Teaching of Evolution.
[ view statement ]

GSA Cosponsors Congressional Briefing on the Great Southern California ShakeOut
Last November, 5.5 million people participated in the Great Southern California ShakeOut, the largest disaster preparedness drill in U.S. history. This 29 July briefing featured the science behind the ShakeOut and changes that are taking place to strengthen infrastructure and improve emergency response. GSA organized this briefing in collaboration with other scientific societies and the Congressional Hazards Caucus Alliance.
[ view presentation and videos ]

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Meetings

2009 Annual Meeting

More than 4,000 abstracts have been received for Portland!
Join your colleagues for not-to-be-missed scientific discussions, field trips, workshops, tours, and special events. Register and reserve housing by 14 September for best rates.
[ details ]

Sign up now if you need childcare during the Annual Meeting!
If minimum attendance is not met, the program may be canceled, so please don’t delay. KiddieCorp has provided quality care for children ages 6 months to 12 years at conventions and tradeshows since 1986.
[ details and reservations ]

Watch your email for next month's special MEETING EDITION of
GSA Connection.

Publications

NEW in the GSA BookstoreMap and Chart 97Geologic Map of the Western Blue Ridge and Portions of the Eastern Blue Ridge and Valley and Ridge Provinces in Southeast Tennessee, Southwest North Carolina, and Northern Georgia
Compiled by J. Ryan Thigpen and Robert D. Hatcher Jr.

New Book Sites
GSA recently completed upgrading its online books. Our Special Papers, Memoirs, Field Guides, and Reviews in Engineering Geology can now be reached via www.gsapubs.org. The move will better integrate the books with the online journals. As an example, reference links to GSA books in our journals will now take readers directly to the cited book chapter.

Bloc of Docs
Now that the online books have been moved to our new Web site, Bloc of Doc users can access both journals and books with their accounts. To view journal or book content using your Bloc of Docs account, login at www.gsapubs.org, locate the article or chapter you wish to view, and select Use Bloc of Docs.

Kudos came from the Montana Office of Public Instruction to GeoCorps™ for helping to increase public appreciation of the Beartooth Range.
[ read letter ]

A member of GSA’s recent Australian GeoVenture was invited to contribute as a guest blogger to National Geographic’s “My Wonderful World” Web site.
[ read about the trip ]

Especially for Students

The 2009 Rocky Mountain Rendezvous of Geoscience Students and Employers
3-5 Oct., University of Wyoming–Laramie. Register by 21 Sept.
[ information/registration ]

Resources

Proceedings from a June 2008 seminar organized by Foundation for the Future (FFF) are now available (under Recent Publications). The 358-page book (28.1MB) considers critical factors that most impact Earth's long-term future.

The World Stress Map project is an open-access database for earth-system management. The compilation of recent tectonic stress data includes 21,750 records on the present-day stress field of Earth's crust. This is a collaborative project between academia, industry, and government that aims to characterize stress patterns and to understand stress sources.

Touchpoints

A SAMPLING OF GSA IN THE NEWS

A paper by Bonneville et al. (Geology, July 2009) featured in GSA Connection last month received another notable mention in the 1 August print edition of ScienceNews. Authors are observing how plant root fungi erode rocks.
[ abstract ]

EarthTrek’s Graveyard Geology project was featured in the 31 July Science (print edition) “Random Samples” section. Volunteers are helping to measure weathering of marble gravestones in order to build a database that will help scientists understand weathering rates around the planet.

The Australian launch of EarthTrek made the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald online edition on 21 July. A story also appeared on ABC TV News (Canberra edition).
[ Sydney Morning Herald article ]

Work by W.B. Homoky et al. (Geology, August 2009) on iron isotopes as a tool in oceanography was picked up on several international news wires and covered by Chemical Online, Underwater Times, Bio-Medicine, and Huliq News, among others.
[ abstract | Chemical Online article ]

GSA is joining other scientific organizations as a partner in the LaserFest 2010 celebration to recognize and honor the accomplishments of the scientists, engineers, inventors, and entrepreneurs who made possible the discovery, development, and application of the laser.

Call for Evaluators of Geologically Based World Heritage Sites
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) seeks comments from international experts on the global importance of nominated World Heritage sites. If you would like to be added to the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) database of experts who provide evaluations to the IUCN, please e-mail the IUGS Secretary General at pbobrows@nrcan.gc.ca with your contact coordinates and area of geospecialization.

National Academy of Sciences:
Call for Nominations: due 15 Sept. [ how to nominate ]
>NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing: $10,000 prize to recognize authors whose reviews have synthesized extensive and difficult material, rendering a significant service to science and influencing the course of scientific thought.
>
G.K. Warren Prize: $10,000 award for noteworthy and distinguished accomplishment in fluviatile geology and related aspects of the geological sciences.

Fun with Geoscience Trivia

What is another more common term for a “wiggle stick”?

What name is given to the instrument used to measure the depth of water?

What is the earth science educational game based on geocaching that can take you, following your GPS, to geologically exciting sites across the planet?

GSA Connection is a monthly e-publication of The Geological Society of America, containing news and items of interest to the geoscience community. This publication may contain links to sites on the Internet that are owned and operated by third parties. GSA is not responsible for the content of any such third-party site. GSA Connection may also contain advertising for science-related goods and services.